


Running from Demons

by Mercale



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, M/M, Missing Persons, Politics
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-22
Updated: 2012-10-17
Packaged: 2017-11-12 16:12:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercale/pseuds/Mercale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat has worked hard to get where he is in his life. He worked through general schoolfeeding, vocational training, and strove to get a position with Alternia's best political consulting firm. And even then he didn't stop working, because he was assigned a position with a new candidate whose name carried weight: Gamzee Makara. </p><p>Problem was that even after meeting the troll he'd all but chased after for sweeps, he wasn't sure if he was impressed. And things got far more complicated when Candidate Makara went missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. So this is a thing that is happening. I'm not sure about it very much. But hey, let's see where it goes.

It's the first new car Karkat's ever had in his life, and it's a thing of beauty. Not some fucking piece of cheap no leg room, nook crushing, milk beast scented, go no where fast and guzzle fuel doing it, piece of shit that a custodial unit bought for their ward when they finished schoolfeeding or vocation training. No, this was the real fucking deal, with slick lines, went from zero to hold onto your horns in thirty seconds, was as quiet as a stalking purrbeast on the inside, roared like a maned roarbeast on the outside, and got all the trolls to smolder in positively black envy. Sure, it belonged to the agency, but they were giving it to him alongside a promotion provided he kept well behaved and obedient and did his fucking job. This was the kind of thing a troll would immediately go out and celebrate. 

In fact, that was exactly what his friendboss (what kind of fucking bulgelicker called themselves a friendboss, oh right, Johann Egbert did) was suggesting right now. Not that Karkat was really listening. Johann tended to ramble on forever, both on and off the job, and there was no amount of yelling or cursing or pleading that could shut him up. Instead Karkat had taken to tuning the older troll out, letting him decide to shut up on his own, and then getting his own comments in. Was easier than trying to ram them into Egbert's aural sponge clots. 

The problem was that Karkat didn't feel like partying. Not now, not for a sweep. The car didn't help, the promotion didn't help, and Johann sure as fuck didn't help either. Then again, only the last had actively tried to help, and poorly at that. The others were rewards that were distractions, or distractions that were rewards. Either way it didn't fucking matter much because the distraction was no more useful than the last thirty had been. Any moment he spent not caught up in a job (okay, so maybe some fucking things distracted him), his thinkpan was open season for the same damn thing to waltz through and demand turning over. Again and again his thinkpan came back to it, just as it did now, looking at his new car. 

No, not 'it.' Well, okay maybe 'it' a little. Fuck, words just didn't handle all this shit. Maybe Johann could make up one or two, like compliquited or unrequiflushed or something similarly stupid that Karkat would never use. But truth of it, plain and simple, was that whatever terms that were used, the meaning didn't change. 

His world revolved around Gamzee Makara.

The problem was that no one knew where the fuck he was.

* * * * * *

“This'll be your office. And by yours I mean you'll be sharing with two other people, but they're only senior volunteers so you're kind of not quite their superior. Don't let them give you grief, right?”

Karkat had to work not to roll his eyes, looking flippant in front of a senior level staffer at the agency that had hired him was not the way to start his first assignment. Especially not when said retard had just as much power as their employer to fire him at the drop of a head gear. Despite the blueblood's insistence that he was a friendboss and not a bossboss—what a fucking addlepanned thing to say—Karkat wasn't risking his position. He'd worked his horns to numbs (as his roommate Sollux liked to say) to get into a good vocational training program, to get hired by a leading consulting agency, and to get the position as a junior adviser in the campaign of his favorite candidate, Gamzee Makara of the politically accomplished Makara family. This was a career making job. Well, more like a career starting job, but he was still excited. Had he been put on any other case... No, Karkat wouldn't think about that just now. He was going to work with Candidate Makara, what more could he ask?

It wasn't that Karkat was caught up in the glamor of the Makara line, for all that most trolls were. The Makaras had been political leaders in the Senate for four generations. Which was pretty much forever as far as most trolls were concerned. Gamzee, though, he was different. A black baabeast of the family. He was campaigning on an abnormal set of platforms from his predecessors. Free health care for shorter lived trolls, increased minimum work pay, and global free access to husktops for all trolls. There had been stories all throughout Karkat's vocation training establishment about Gamzee, who'd completed training a sweep before Karkat, about how 'chill that motherfucker was' and that 'he was going places.' Karkat, who'd been in his first half of his first sweep during Gamzee's last half sweep, had only rarely seen the famous troll. Okay, that was a fucking lie and he knew it. While Makara obviously wouldn't know it, Karkat had been in one training session with Gamzee for a few perigees, but that wasn't really worth noting. 

“So I'll leave you to get settled in for now, okay? If you need anything the volunteers arrive in an hour and know where everything is. Other than that just keep yourself busy, check in with senior staff when you need work...”

“Speaking of which,” Karkat cut in, hoping to free himself of Johann's rambling. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Huh? Oh, right. Hold on, I've got a note about that from someone around here and...” Johann mumbled, burying his attention into a stack of papers on his clipboard. There was a minute or two of flipping before an exclamation and a smile. “Here it is. You're due for a meeting with Candidate Makara in his office in ten minutes. Wow, that's cutting it close. Maybe I shouldn't have taken you on the long version of the tour. Oh well, his office is the one with his name on it. Wait, no, they all have that. Okay, it's the one where is name is on a plaque. Better? Anyway, I've got to get going, so good luck.”

Then, like nothing had just happened that was fucking important, Johann blew out of the room and left Karkat alone, gapping in shock at the open office block door. Why the fuck did Candidate Makara want to see him? Had he done something wrong already? Why the fuck hadn't Johann gotten his thinkpan out of his wastechute long enough to tell him something like that at the start? Fuck fuck fuck there wasn't even enough time to think about it. All Karkat could do was readjust his tie, smooth his hair, and throw himself from the three sizes too small office into the rest of the office stem. 

It took the better part of his ten minutes to even find the candidate's office, mostly because it turned out that something had fucking covered the plaque in question with a campaign poster. He took a moment to calm himself, and then knocked on the door he'd been pointed to by an intern.

“Aw man, just all up and come in.”

After a hard swallow, Karkat pushed the door open, and nervously stepped into the office. Once he was inside he was met by a familiar sight: the back of Gamzee Makara's head. Apparently the candidate didn't think it worthwhile to turn his attention from a bookshelf to meet someone he'd summoned. But this view of Gamzee was one of few Karkat had ever seen from anything by ads, and he'd spent perigees looking at it. His hair now, as it had been then, was tied back in a loose hoofbeast tail but it looked as if it would spring loose with the slightest breeze. The candidate's horns were elegant curving things, and more polished now than they'd ever been in vocation training. The only real difference was that now Gamzee's slender, wiry shoulders looked strong and broad. Amazing what a good suit could do for a troll. Still, Karkat preferred the trolls in his memories to the one before him. He'd spent so much time in the back of their shared training lecture block, staring at that back... Pathetic that he'd never gotten the courage to even say hello. Weird that their paths were crossing now, Gamzee still well known and Karkat still nothing at all. 

Karkat kicked the door closed behind him, and when it didn't draw Makara's attention, he cleared his throat. Sure enough, Candidate Makara turned on heel and Karkat was granted a view of his face. The candidate looked drawn, tired, strained in a way he never had back in vocation training. Nor did he wear any of the clownish makeup that Gamzee sometimes wore as a joke to class. Yet what he did see, and was totally unexpected, was a look of recognition that flashed across Gamzee's face, soon followed by a wide and easy grin. 

“Well motherfucking miracles! I knew I recognized the name. Long time no see, Karkat.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yeah, another chapter. Still don't know much of where this is going. But man am I enjoying it so far. Karkat is just too much fun to write, especially when he's angry.

Gamzee knew his name. Gamzee motherfucking Makara knew his name. When the FUCK did that happen? What did that even fucking mean? 

“You know me?” Karkat asked, doing his best to keep his fucking mouth otherwise shut. There were too many questions, and if he started asking them he might get answers he didn't like, and he might start yelling. Sollux said that his mouth was going to get him fired someday, and sometimes Karkat had to agree with him. The goal was not to let it get him fired today.

“Aw man, how could a motherfucker all up and forget a brother? I'm hurt, Vantas. Hurt. We had a training session together in vocational training. Information redirection. You always all up and sat in the back of the room, and got there wicked early. One real studious motherfucker. Saw you when I came into sessions, your horns all buried in some text or other. But since I all up and came in later, and you were one attentive motherfucker, I doubt you even motherfucking noticed me.”

Karkat held his words—his breath—because otherwise he wasn't sure he wouldn't say something he shouldn't. Which meant there was an awkward moment of silence that ended with Gamzee rubbing the back of his head nervously. He'd never seen Gamzee nervous like that before. It was almost adorable. 

“Guess you didn't. Most people all up and remember the famous trolls in their sessions or who they meet on the streets. A brother wouldn't even up and fucking believe just how many motherfuckers have come out of the damn walls ever since I announced my candidacy. Act like they're up and my friends.”

“It comes with the territory,” Karkat mumbled, trying his hardest not to stare at the candidate. 

“Yeah. My custodial unit warned me of that. But I ain't all up and got my appreciate on until recently. Thought it was about time to take my predecessors all serious and that, about surrounding myself with trolls I all up and knew. So when I saw your name, I knew I needed you on my team...”

“Idiot,” Karkat growled under his breath.

“What?”

Fuck. Okay, so maybe not so under his breath as he thought. 

“I called you a fucking idiot. Sir. Surround yourself with trolls you know? Are you serious or do you just have a hole in your pan. Two problems with that little jewel of advice. First: there is no guarantee that the trolls you know are even worthwhile in a campaign. Second: you don't know me.”

“We...”

“No. Don't you even fucking interrupt me. You can speak when I'm FUCKING done. Maybe you'll be quiet and learn something. Because obviously you didn't even learn enough in vocational training. You DO. NOT. KNOW. ME. We had a session together. Once. We never spoke, we never interacted, you didn't even stick in my memories.” 

A terrible lie, but this nooksniffer didn't know better. 

“If you hired me just because we went to the same vocational training institute, or because we shared a class, fuck you I don't even WANT the job. If I wanted to get a position just because you knew my name, I would have been kissing your shoes in our training. Did I do any of that? I sure as fucking didn't. I took my sessions seriously. I worked my horns to the nub to get where I am today. And I sure as fuck don't want hand outs from the likes of you. I'm not going to ride anyone's fucking coat tails. I'm...”

“Aw man, just all up and shoosh yourself. Just chill,” Gamzee said, moving forward with his hand at the ready. Karkat ducked away before Gamzee could even get in a few feet of him. The last thing he needed after this fucking day was to get papped by his new boss. 

“You really think I all up and picked you just because I had a session with you? Man, I'm not that thick in the pan. Didn't take a motherfucking scholar to pick up on the fact that you up and knew your shit in that session. At one point my tests were falling, and the scholar told me that if I needed a tutor, you were his best student. Said I should up and talk to you...”

Wait? Really? Man, Karkat had known he was doing good, but he hadn't known he was doing that good. The teacher wasn't exactly forthcoming with his fucking opinions. He'd been good enough to be recommended as a tutor for the most likely to be known troll in the class. 

“When I saw your name, I remembered that. Decided I needed you on my team.”

“I guess that's acceptable.”

“Plus it's really motherfucking refreshing to have someone around who will just up and tell it to me straight. Most of the trolls around here are exactly what you think. Hanging on and hoping to get all up and advanced just by trading on my name. But you, you got wicked kinds of pride. And you ain't seem about to let that get between you and your tasks. Which is what I all up and motherfucking need. I need your motherfucking help, Karkat. I need an information redirector of the highest level, one who takes their work seriously.”

“You're still new to the campaign. How could you need a spinterror already?”

“Because there are some people that if they knew everything I knew, or was involved in back during vocational training, they would want me dead.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another week, another chapter. I hope this entertains you. I admit, this story is the least stable in my head of the four I am currently working on. This means that when I’ve got a busy week, this is likely the story that won’t update due to reasons. But hey, what can you do?

For a few moments Karkat stood there, waiting for the chuckle, the laughter, the admittance that this was all just some big joke. Except Gamzee was just standing there too, waiting for some kind of response, which meant it wasn’t some joke. This wasn’t some fucking joke. This was real. The candidate might have a threat to his life and yet he just stood there, as if it wasn’t a problem. Okay, plain and simple, Gamzee was crazy and there was no saving him from that. Great.

“You’re fucking joking,” Karkat demanded, half hoping it would turn out to be true anyway.

“Aw naw, man. Ain’t even a thing a brother should all up and get his mirth on about. A brother’s life ain’t no jokin’ matter.”

“And you haven’t fucking taken this to your security detail? This seems more up their alley.”

“Couldn’t up and tell Equius this kind of motherfucking thing. For one, he wouldn’t up and take it serious. For another, a brother can’t be sure that he’d be any better about this than the people who would be after me.”

“Is it just me or is there a bit of a problem if you can’t trust your security to guard you?”

“Now don’t go up and blaming Equius about this shit. He ain’t up and in the know here. Trust me, if I felt that a motherfucker was worth bringing into this, I would do it in the beat of a pusher. But he ain’t, and I ain’t going to up and make him have to choose. This is on you, Karkat. Hope you can handle it.”

The real question was whether or not he wanted to handle it. All he had to do was walk away now, pretend this conversation never happened. Then again, he’d be fired, ruined for his line of work forever. What was he supposed to do then?

Fuck, he wasn’t the kind of guy that ran away from a problem. He worked it until it wasn’t a problem anymore. Glared it down and made it submit to his will. Sollux mocked him for it, but it was better than giving up.

“Tell me what I need to know?”

“Oh, man, am I ever sorry for leading you wrong right now. This isn’t what I meant to do. Brother, I can’t talk about it here. Let’s be honest, I’ve got all up and sorts of problems with my guardian and his guardian and all that. Can’t ever be sure when they will listen in.”

“They’re…”

“No, not now. Equius checks every morning for me, clears this place out like no one’s business. But there always seem to be more. One of my people is obviously in my family’s pockets. So the thing is we can’t up and discuss everything in here. Eventually someone will come on in and up and hear things and slip in a device for listening or something. Can’t do it here.”

“Then why did you fucking call me in here now?”

“To get you all on board and that. Tonight we deal with this. I’ll come by your office and take you out tonight. Drinks or something. We’ll have Equius check us before we go. Until then I guess you need some work, yeah? Fuck, well I don’t up and know. Maybe talk to Johhan about it. He’ll have something for you to do, right?”

Karkat sighed. The last thing he wanted on top of all of this was to deal with Johhan again. “Yeah, I’m sure he will.”

“Good. Now, I’ve up and got a meeting to deal with. You best up and get your work on. And Karkat… I’m counting on you.”

That made one of them. With a sigh, Karkat turned and slipped from the office. Better than trying to think about what is going on with all this. Pretend that this hadn’t happened and just go about his life as if he had a normal job.

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

“Two of the usual,” Gamzee hollered across the bar at the troll who was standing there, making drinks.

“I don’t fucking want any of that…”

“They aren’t for you. But if you want something, brother, just all up and get your order on. You can wait too. There’s this set of all these back rooms where people who want food can all up and chill. Private rooms.”

“Aren’t you concerned with…?”

“Naw, man. Equius comes in through a back door, checks the room, then all up and waits for me to be done to get me back to my hive. My guardians, for all that they spy, believe in keeping me safe. Gotta up and love them for the confusion.”

Karkat followed obediently, but as he did he couldn’t help but notice that his eyes kept followed more than just the back of his boss. The way that Gamzee moved through the tangle was just mesmerizing—Sollux would never let him hear the fucking end of it if he ever said that around him. His hips swayed slowly from side to side, twisting one way and then the other to avoid trolls, drinks, and everything else that came up. The movements were slow, deliberate, rhythmic almost. At last Karkat tore his eyes away, swallowed hard, and tried to keep up. Fucking privileged purple blood with fucking persecution issues having fucking hips that were impossible to look away from.  
  
“Here,” Gamzee said, ducking around a corner. When Karkat followed he found that they were now in a quiet, narrow corridor. There were a few doors on the one side of the hall, private rooms he guessed, and outside one stood a serious looking indigo blooded troll. The troll turned to regard them, giving Gamzee a brief nod of acknowledgement, and sending Karkat a menacing glare. This, then, was Equius, the head of the candidate’s security.

“Make sure no one disturbs us except the waitroll, okay?”

Equius nodded, then held the door open for Gamzee. Soon enough Karkat was closeted away with the candidate he glared at Gamzee.

“Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“You ever heard of the Messiahs?” Gamzee asked, taking a seat at the small table in the room.

“That sopor dealing gang?”

“They’re the ones that would be after me.”

Well fuck.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear, have I really had two weeks in a row where I didn't update this? I'm a bad writer. I can/will plead business. My other half had a field trip to deal with, and that meant shopping, packing, and fussing around the house. But I'm back, here to give you a quick fix.

“The Messiahs,” Karkat chocked out. 

“Yep.”

“You managed to piss off the Messiahs.”

“That's about the motherfucking long and short of it,” Gamzee agreed, still looking like a cheerful idiot. 

“No,” Karkat growled, slamming a fist on the table. “That's a short version so fucking short that only someone with about five seconds to live would even dare to tell it that way. The short of it would also include what act of supreme stupidity you committed to get those insane fuckers on your tail. You'd probably also give me what happened to cause it if you were anywhere near sane and actually wanting help.”

“Woah. Man, you just never up and lay off of the ranting, do ya? Gotta respect that in a brother. Show's he's all up and motherfucking serious. I'm pretty sure it takes a special kind of talent too. How do you even up and breathe around all that rage spewing?”

“Shut up. Just shut up,” Karkat snapped, resting his arms on the table and burying his face in them. “I've got to think,” he mumbled into his arms. 

Yeah, he needed to do more than think. He had to just jump ship, now. Sure, Gamzee Makara was the candidate who inspired him. The idiot had ideas that could really reform their political system and even their culture. Throw their whole fucked up system on its head and make Alternia worthwhile for shorter lived trolls. This was the candidate he wanted to vote for, so why not be the candidate he worked for? 

But how was he supposed to throw himself behind a troll who could very likely get himself killed. Because that was what Gamzee was risking by having even the faintest association with the Messiahs. And obviously Gamzee had some real association with them. It would explain some of the rumors about him back during training. Sopor wasn't the best on a troll's pan. Lead to this soporific bliss, Karkat heard, but also rotted the pan over time. Highly addictive, inhibition reducing, and known to lead to increased rage and violence in trolls who were between fixes. It was one of the greatest risks to cultured society—except for the continued dominance of only longer-lived trolls in their society—and the dealers of it were even worse. They were vicious in their defense of their dealing. There were law enforcers and legiscerators whose missing person reports or homicide findings blamed their loss on 'sopor suppression.' There was even a rumor that those people that the Messiahs caught trying to break up their trafficking were grabbed, force fed the stuff until addicted, then put off cold turkey. Once whipped up into a homicidal rage the troll was pitted against another captive, in battles that were bet on for the amusement of the Messiahs. 

And Gamzee wanted Karkat to protect him from those monsters? Was he crazy?

“What do you even expect me to do?” Karkat asked, finally looking up from his arms. “There isn't much that people can do to stop them once they're focused on something. You know that, right? What the fuck do you expect me to do?”

“Already up and told you. The motherfuckers can't know. I need you to keep things a secret.”

“Keep what a secret? That you're a recovering...”

“Naw man. You getting your motherfucking joke on? Ain't nothing that would get me to put my motherfucking hands on the stuff. Sopor will rot your pan. Seen it get its green malignance into good trolls I knew. Ain't no motherfucking thing so sad as watching someone lose themselves to the shit. No, Karkat, I need you to do something all up and ten kinds of more dangerous.”

“What?”

“I'm working all quiet like to put together some tentative legislation to encourage private research into chemicals that can all up and be put into the water, man. Something to counteract the sopor. Once into the water system, it will become pretty impossible for the Messiahs to deal their product to any real end. If handled properly we could manage the withdrawal, deal with the motherfuckers, and improve our world, man.”

All Karkat could do was stare at Gamzee in shock. He was trying to find a way to do away with sopor? Despite the risk even trying posed to his life? Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Why the hell did this fucking idiot have to keep impressing him, keep making Karkat want to fight for him? Just what was it about Gamzee that was so pitiable?

No! No, that was totally not even remotely a fucking thing he should be fucking considering. A troll did not start getting flushed for their superiors—even if they had been flushed for them long before said troll had been their superior—it just wasn't seemly. He was an employee serving a worthwhile candidate before he was a troll looking to fill his quadrants. Besides, just because nothing in the literature about Candidate Makara indicated he had any quads filled, that didn't mean he didn't. Some politrolls felt it wasn't anyone's business who they were flushed, ashen, or pale with. Keeping caliginous partners secret was all but impossible, of course, but the others often tried to keep things quiet if asked. For all Karkat knew Gamzee had been seriously involved with someone for sweeps, since before Karkat had known him. 

“And if the Messiahs find out,” Karkat started to say, only to be cut off as Gamzee nodded and opened his mouth to speak.

“My life would be all up and motherfucking forfeit. Not to mention those of a lot of wicked motherfuckers working with me. When they ain't up and done anything. So I need someone running interference. Understand? I need someone keeping an eye on what the newscasts are saying, making sure my message ain't even implying what I'm working on. Questions regarding sopor got to all up and be handled all proper like. I want you doing research on what others do to keep out of the sopor talk.”

“I don't see why it shouldn't be easy for you to avoid it. Not like the media much asks about it.”

“A friend of mine from vocation training died two months ago due to an investigation into sopor. Thought his guardian's position in government would protect him. There have been questions since then.”

“Fuck,” Karkat growled. “You aren't going to make this fucking easy on me are you?”

“Things worth doing are rarely motherfucking easy,” Gamzee pointed out. “So you'll do it?”

For Gamzee, anything. But he wasn't going to admit that. 

“Yeah. But I'll need more information, and I'll need access to you when I deem it necessary.”

“Done, motherfucker. Let's get some details ironed out then. Pop your head out and ask Equius where the fuck the waitroll is.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still don't know where this is going. Honest truth, I didn't expect the bombs Gamzee dropped last time I wrote. But let us see what other kind of trouble Karkat is going to get himself into this week.

The dinner, once the ulterior motive of the conversation was over, was awkward at best for Karkat. Without business matters to occupy the whole of his pan—not that a large fucking portion of it wasn't occupied with the revelation Gamzee had dropped—there was little for Karkat to do but sit quietly and listen to Gamzee ramble as they ate. The food was good, so were the drinks, but the conversation could have been better. Apparently the candidate had decided that the best conversation he could come up with was informing Karkat about people they'd had vocation training with that Karkat neither knew nor cared about. Obviously they had been friends with Gamzee, and the candidate really cared about them, but honestly Karkat couldn't give a single fuck. They were the kind of people who were always talked about, trolls like Gamzee who had gone into politics because that was what their caretakers did. People who had a name by the luck of the draw, and wanted to trade it in for fame and fortune.

Gamzee wasn't like that. Whether he realized it or not, there were whispers. There was no amount of political spinning that could kill the whispers that the two seniors of his lineage disapproved of his political stances. That they saw him as an attempt to destroy what they had worked to build and could no longer manage on their own because of term limitations. Gamzee was supposed to be the continuation of the system that the Makaras had built, and his campaign promised instead to start tearing it down. He wasn't like other trolls, like others who were following in their caretakers' footsteps by going into politics. No, Gamzee Makara was more like Karkat, who had grown up seeing the system as unfair for people of his shorter lifespan, and wishing he could see it change. He wanted equality, in truth as well as in the word, and Karkat wanted to sing his praises for it.

What he didn't want to do was sit here listening to his candidate go on about people that he could hardly care anything about. He wanted Gamzee to talk to him about something else. Not about trolls he didn't give a single set of fucks about. But about policy, and campaign issues and how he was going to change the world and use Karkat to help him. 

Not that Gamzee hadn't asked Karkat to help him. This sopor thing... 

Karkat sighed into the remains of his beer. How was he supposed to protect Gamzee from the most dangerous subset of their race? How did he do it without getting them both killed? 

“You all up and okay, brother?” Gamzee asked, a frown clear on his face.

“Huh?”

“You just up and sighed into your beer. Ain't something a brother who is all feeling fine does. I mean, I know it's a chemical depressant and all that, but it doesn't mean that a brother gets this sad. Wanna share?”

No, because sharing this kind of stuff was hardly something Karkat wanted. That was a little too waxing on pale. Sollux would probably pound his head in for infidelity, and Karkat would start getting himself getting involved with Gamzee in a way that wasn't appropriate for a boss and their employees. 

But neither was it appropriate to harbor quiet, flushed feelings for their superior. 

“I'm tired,” Karkat lied, easily. “I was nervous about this morning, so I kind of didn't sleep well enough.”

“Aw man, then don't up and spend your time with me. How is a brother supposed to be useful to a motherfucker if he ain't got his sleep? Go on, get out. Equius will call you a car or something.”

“It's fine,” Karkat said, pushing himself away from the table. “My hivestem isn't far from here. I'll walk.”

“Okay, brother. Get yourself some sleep. Tomorrow will be serious.”

“Isn't it always?” Karkat grumbled under his breath as he slipped from the private room. 

* * * * * *

“You're back late.”

“Excuse me if I've finally fucking decided to start running on your personal perception of what a proper sleep cycle looks like,” Karkat snapped as he shut the hive door behind him and flipped the locks into place. 

“Geez, someone's put some buzzbeasts in your head gear,” Sollux laughed from his place on their shitty couch. 

He was, predictably, stretched out on the ugly fucking thing, a game controller in his hands, and his eyes focused entirely on the stream of violence and gore that was characteristic of Modern Cullfare. Unsurprising really, this time of day Sollux was always on his games. Chances were he'd finished his latest project an hour or so back, and had celebrated his normal way: gaming. If there was one thing Sollux loved as much as building codes on a level that could make it easily affordable for them to get a better hive if Sollux didn't insist on spending it on bigger and better apiculture networks and more video games, it was playing the games he'd bought.

“You're the only one that does that,” Karkat pointed out, shedding his coat onto the coat rack near the door, and moving for the couch. Sollux, predictably, refused to even make the slightest bit of movement to relinquish any part of the couch. With a tired sigh Karkat grabbed Sollux's legs, pushed them off the couch, and flopped down. A moment later Sollux's legs were on his lap, and there was a game controller floating up from the floor and towards Karkat's hands, surrounded by a faint red-blue glow. 

“I'm not in the mood,” Karkat grumbled, glaring at the television as Sollux exited out of his game and started gearing up for a two player version. 

“You're always in the mood,” Sollux countered, even as the control floated up to Karkat's head and started to gently bump into his head. 

“I'm not in the fucking mood, Sollux!” Karkat snarled, knocking the controller away with his hand. The controller fell from Sollux's careful psionic grip. An action Karkat instantly regretted as the controller fell and smacked into his knee. He grabbed at the injured leg, bending over it and whimpering pathetically. Predictably Sollux was instantly sitting up, making soothing sounds and apologizing as he rubbed Karkat's knee. Meanwhile the game sat abandoned, with Sollux's full attention on comforting his moirail, both shooshing and mocking Karkat for getting himself hurt in the first place. 

Theirs was a complicated moirallegiance, to say the least. Karkat and Sollux had both gone to the same schoolfeeding division, though they hadn't met each other until the worst day of Sollux's life. He'd run out of his medications, and his guardian was out getting more, but wasn't going to get it to Sollux by the end of the school day. So apparently Sollux had been doing his best to keep his head down, to keep quiet, to keep from being noticed by the people who constantly chose to pick on him because of his lisp, double horns, and two color eyes. They hadn't known what it all meant, and had been used to Sollux just brushing it off because he'd always had his medicine. 

No one had been prepared for the outburst. No one knew how to deal with a psionic losing control of their powers. Few people at their schoolfeeding division had even seen a true psionic before, and so had never realized that the things they were picking on Sollux for were signs their race used to be fearful of before civilization had come up with a way to help psionics control their powers. So when the bullies had gone too far, had frayed the last bits of Sollux's control and he'd let loose a burst of red and blue psionic energy, everyone ran screaming away from the sight.

Karkat had run for towards the riot of energy. His pan had been roiling with fear and concern. Their schoolfeeders had yelled at him to get away until they brought in a specialist to deal with him. And yet Sollux had needed help now, and Karkat had run for him, sliding under flying tables and chairs, until he at last came to a stop behind the troll. Karkat had wrapped his arms around the raging psionic, shooshing and gently soothing the stranger. In the end, Sollux had calmed down long before the schoolfeeders had gotten their specialists there, and Karkat had been excused from his classes to shadow Sollux for the day and make sure he made it to the point where his caretaker had arrived with the psionics suppressing medication. 

Since then Karkat and Sollux had been inseparable. It was ironic, really, considering the fact that more than half of their time was spent arguing with each other. Fighting, shouting, wrestling in annoyance, and yet sharing every spare moment they could. Half of the problems in Karkat's life came from knowing Sollux, and yet here he was, still spending his time with the asshole, still looking to him for some comfort. 

For all that they seemed to hate each other half the time, they pitied each other all of it. It was unorthodox pale quadrant, but it worked for them, and now Karkat was turning to Sollux once again. 

“What happened, nub head?” Sollux asked, his voice low and soothing. 

“This isn't what I thought it was going to be.”

“When are things ever what we think they are going to be?” Sollux asked, half laughing. 

Hardly comforting words, Karkat realized, even though he still leaned his head against Sollux's since the offer was there. 

“This is worse, Sollux. So much worse.”

“You're probably overreacting. You pretty much always do that.”

Yeah, but this time Karkat wasn't sure he was.


End file.
